I can't say enough what a difference it makes to grind your own meat when making hamburgers, meatloaf, meatballs, chili, or anything else that requires ground meat. I use the KitchenAid Grinder Attachment since I already own a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and it does a great job. It's also easy to clean since it is removable and comes apart easily (and is dishwasher safe).
A few tips to get the most out of this attachment:
Trim gristle and large chunks of solid fat from the meat.
Cut meat into Read more [...]

I've blogged about chocolate cake before (a loooong time ago), but the recipe requires a good amount of cake-making technique, mainly due to the creaming of the butter & sugar. I've witnessed plenty of people do this improperly (usually they don't let it go long enough), so I decided to re-vamp the old recipe.
This recipe will make one 9-inch round or 12 cupcakes. Doubled, it will make two 9-inch rounds, three 8-inch rounds, or a 9 x 13-inch sheet cake (or 24 cupcakes, duh!).
1/2 tsp Read more [...]

At about 7:00 this morning, I pulled the briskets out of the brine and rinsed them per Ruhlman's instructions. I sprinkled each of them with another tablespoon of The Spice House's corned beef spice mix (mustard seeds, Moroccan coriander, Jamaican allspice, Zanzibar cloves, Turkish bay leaves, Indian dill seed, China #1 ginger, star anise, black pepper, juniper berries, mace and cayenne red pepper) and vacuum-sealed them. They then spent about 9 hours in a 180F water bath (I used the Sous Vide Read more [...]

With assists from Michael Ruhlman and The Spice House, I began curing a brisket this past Saturday for St. Patrick's Day on Thursday. I used Ruhlman's recipe, which calls for corning spices and curing salt (a.k.a. InstaCure #1, Prague Powder #1, pink salt, or by its chemical name: sodium nitrite), both of which I got via mail order from The Spice House in Chicago. It's essentially a long, slow brine, so you have to know ahead of time that you want to do this. I almost didn't have enough time Read more [...]